Nah. Slasher films are supposed to give you nightmares. If they don’t make you feel like you have to laugh and throw popcorn at the screen so no one notices how jumped and quietly whimpered when the bad guy popped up, they’re doing it wrong.

Okay, this is my first ever go, both at a Chuck Wendig Challenge AND flash fiction of 1,000 words or less. And of course I’ve now looked at everyone else’s and gone “Awww, they’re all soooo much better than mine – I suuuuuuucccck…”

*Stops. Thinks. Pulls out pen and writes “Note to self: in future, don’t do own PR.*

Anyway, I made the deadline AND stuck to the 1,000-word limit, so I’ll allow myself a minor ‘Yay, go me’ for that. I picked ‘Cinderella’ and I rolled ‘Detective’ for my subgenre. And here is my link:

Great voice, and I love the gumshoe setting. The detail about the stepsister with the dye job is priceless. I’d been wondering what I’d do if I rolled “detective” — not my genre at all. The way you told your story is how I would’ve wanted to tell it, but doubt I’d be able to. You did it well!

This is too much fun! I chose a Russian fairytale (I wanted to broaden my fairy tale palate from the Grimm Brothers) called The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa and gave it a little dystopian fun. It’s a little over (300 words :/) but I didn’t have time to do any real edits. And I wanted to get it up on time one week in January! Winning!

Yeah, I have to admit, I didn’t know much about the Firebird in Russian fairytales, so did a bit of reading. It’s an amazing theme, a trademark for a quest. I love fairytales, and I am going to have to read more I think.

Okay, so I remember watching a cartoon movie of this story when I was a kid. Ever since I saw you mention it here, I’ve been scouring the internet to find something about that movie, but I’ve come up with nada. It’s driving me crazy!

But. I like your twist on it the story! If I remember correctly, the original tells that the king gets boiled alive and the Huntsman marries Vasilisa. But I think I enjoy her as a schemer staging a coup! Yeah, I feel bad for the Huntsman…but maybe being a bird won’t be so bad. ; ) Great job!

Yeah, you’re right but I wrote the marriage out of the ending because, hey, it’s a new world, and I’m sick of women being the prize. Yay empowerment!

I did feel bad about the Huntsman, but I figured he gets freedom instead of being used by everyone for all the rest of his life. And that maybe that was her kindness to him.

Interestingly, both the Firebird and Vasilisa are Russian fairytale staples, so I feel they’ll meet again. Firebird is the signal for or initiation of a quest, while Vasilisa is the pure woman done over by hardship.

Also, for anyone also looking for other fairytales, Wikipedia was my friend for the list of well known fairytales from several cultures (mostly European, but at least there were some others!).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fairy_tales

OK, here it is: http://just50000words.blogspot.ca/2014/01/rumpel-redux.html. Rumpel Redux, based on Rumpelstiltskin in the detective genre. As I mentioned in the intro on my blog, the story was easy enough once I got going but the 1,000 word limit was the bigger test for me. I’ve been rewriting, tweaking, excising all week but it’s time to just walk away. Ready for the next challenge.

I guess technically mine is grimdark fantasy, rather than psychological horror, since I haven’t modernized the setting, and there is a talking cat that isn’t just talking in the p.o.v. character’s head.